Kindly help me with the following question.
A particle of unit mass performing (lightly) damped simple harmonic oscillations satisfies - kx - a x' = x'' three consecutive postions of instantaneous rest, relative to origin O, are given x=6, x=3, x=4 at approximately equal intervals of 2 seconds. Find period of oscillation for the undamped oscillator.
thanks

Jan 25th 2009, 10:29 AM

Constatine11

Quote:

Originally Posted by charikaar

Kindly help me with the following question.
A particle of unit mass performing (lightly) damped simple harmonic oscillations satisfies - kx - a x' = x'' three consecutive postions of instantaneous rest, relative to origin O, are given x=6, x=3, x=4 at approximately equal intervals of 2 seconds. Find period of oscillation for the undamped oscillator.
thanks

Sketch the graph of lightly dammed SHM, look at three consecutive points where the particle is stationary (horizontal tangent).

These three points will be close to stationary points for the for undamped SHM and so can be used to estimate the period of the undamped SHM.

.

Jan 25th 2009, 12:51 PM

charikaar

Thanks for that.

to draw a graph x(t) is on the vertical axis and t is on horizental axis? is t in seconds or radians? sorry if i sound too stupid but do you know what t=? when particle is at instantaneous rest. I know the solution is x(t)=acos(wt-$)

instantaneous rest when x'(t)=0 what is the positions of instantanaeous rest?